Imaging techniques for nanostructures
- Submission status
- Closed
- Submission deadline
Nanostructures have recently widely attracted research attention due to their extraordinary physical and chemical properties which are essential in a variety of applications including energy conversion and storage, electronic and optoelectronic applications. To develop, characterise, and use such structures, it is necessary to image and probe their forms; standard optical imaging techniques are not suitable to probe such structures, due to the diffraction of light with wavelengths larger than the structures themselves. For this reason, the research community have worked in developing a range of imaging and probing techniques that allow to see far beyond the optical capabilities: scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), etc. use electron beams to probe samples allowing the much smaller electron wavelength to define the resolution limit; whilst atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM), etc. use probes dragged across the surface (like a needle on a record) to measure extremely small changes in structure.
This Collection invites submissions reporting the latest advances in imaging techniques for nanostructures and their uses in modern applications, with particular focus on physical disciplines.
Editors
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Sooyeon Hwang
Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA
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Xiu-Liang Ma
Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
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Susheng Tan
University of Pittsburgh, USA
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Hongzhou Zhang
University of Dublin, Ireland
Sooyeon Hwang is a Research Staff at the Center for Functio
nal Nanomaterials, Broohaven National Laboratory. Her research aims to gain insight into the working mechanisms of energy materials, specifically battery electrodes and catalysts, by utilizing both ex-situ and in-situ transmission electron microscopy. Dr. Hwang has been an Editorial Board Member for Scientific Reports since 2022.
Xiu-Liang Ma is a Professor in the Institute of Physics, 
Chinese Academy of Sciences. He also works as a professor in Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, where he chairs the Bay Area Center for Electron Microscopy. Dr. Ma’s research program covers a broad range of materials science and physics disciplines. The research themes include electron crystallography of quasicrystals and complex compounds, engineering and atomic mapping of ferroelectric topology, interfacial fine structure of quantum materials, and pitting initiation of metals. Prof. Ma has been an Editorial Board Member for Scientific Reports since 2013.
Susheng Tan is a Research Associate Professor at the Department of 
Electrical and Computer Engineering, and an Executive Microscopy Scientist at the Gertrude E. & John M. Petersen Institute of NanoScience and Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, USA. His research interest is centred on the structural and chemical characterization of materials from micro-, to nano-, and atomic scale using scanning and transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and spectroscopies. Dr Tan has been an Editorial Board Member for Scientific Reports since 2022.
Hongzhou Zhang is a Full Professor in the School of Physics, 
Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin. His current research is focused on the synthesis, structures and properties of two-dimensional structures with a specific objective to enable novel nanodevices for next-generation neuromorphic computation. Prof. Zhang has been an Editorial Board Member for Scientific Reports since 2015.
